''Better Watch Out'' (formerly titled ''Safe Neighborhood'') is a 2016

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

psychological horror Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subge ...

film directed by Chris Peckover, from a script he co-wrote with Zack Kahn. It stars

Olivia DeJonge Olivia DeJonge (; born 30 April 1998) is an Australian actress, known for playing Tara Swift / Shaneen Quigg in ABC1's '' Hiding'', Becca in the film '' The Visit'' (2015), Elle in Netflix's '' The Society'' (2019), and Priscilla Presley in the ...

, Levi Miller and Ed Oxenbould. The film had its world premiere at

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Giant'' and ''Secondhand ...

on September 22, 2016, and was released in the United States on October 6, 2017, by

Well Go USA A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

and in Australia on November 23, 2017, by Rialto Distribution.

Plot

At Christmas time, 17-year-old Ashley is babysitting precocious 12-year-old Luke Lerner. Luke has romantic feelings for Ashley and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce her while watching a horror film. Strange happenings outside put Ashley on edge, but it ultimately appears to be just Luke's best friend, Garrett, who has arrived to visit. Hearing a window break upstairs, the trio find a brick inscribed with "U leave and U die." Garrett panics and runs out the back door, but is apparently killed by an unknown shooter. Shocked, Ashley and Luke run upstairs and hide in the attic. Ashley almost breaks her neck from a fall but Luke catches her. After they run into Luke's room and hide in his closet, a masked intruder armed with a shotgun walks in. Ashley recognizes the mask as one of Luke's and tells the intruder to take it off, revealing Garrett. Ashley realizes that Luke was hoping to seduce her by scaring her and staging a rescue. Angered, Ashley yells at Luke, calling him mental and saying he needs therapy and tries to leave. Luke follows behind Ashley and once at the top of the stairs Luke slaps her, causing her to fall down the stairs and be knocked unconscious. Luke binds Ashley with

duct tape Duct tape (also called duck tape, from the cotton duck cloth it was originally made of) is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure-sensitive tape, often coated with polyethylene. There are a variety of constructions using different backings and adhesi ...

, forcing her to play

truth or dare Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, ...

. Her boyfriend Ricky arrives at the house after receiving a text message sent by Ashley earlier. When Ricky fails to find Ashley, he realizes that something is wrong. Luke tries to knock him out but fails. After nearly killing Luke, Ricky is threatened by Garrett with the shotgun. Luke knocks Ricky out and they tie him up beside Ashley. While Ashley uses a shard of glass to cut herself free, Luke tries to show Garrett what happens if you actually hit someone in the head with a swinging paint can, based on a scene from the film ''

Home Alone ''Home Alone'' is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The first film in the ''Home Alone'' franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Hea ...

''. Luke tries to demonstrate with Ricky but misses on the first swing. Ashley gets free and threatens Luke with a gun. He releases the paint can, which hits and kills Ricky. When Ashley realizes the gun is empty, she tries to escape to a group of carolers outside. Luke uses the brick tossed through the upstairs window to knock her out again before she can alert them. Luke calls Ashley's ex-boyfriend, Jeremy, claiming that she wants him to write an apology letter. While Jeremy does so, Luke hangs him from a tree, making the apology look like a suicide note. Garrett has a change of heart and starts to free Ashley, but is killed by Luke. Luke stabs Ashley in the neck and stages the scene to frame Jeremy. Later, he goes to bed and waits for the return of his parents, who contact the police. Ashley survives, having placed duct tape over the stab wound to stop the bleeding. Luke watches from his bedroom window as Ashley gives him the finger before being wheeled into the ambulance.

Cast

as Ashley * Levi Miller as Luke Lerner * Ed Oxenbould as Garrett * Aleks Mikic as Ricky *

Dacre Montgomery Dacre Kayd Montgomery-Harvey (; born 22 November 1994) is an Australian actor. He is known for his roles as Billy Hargrove in the Netflix series ''Stranger Things'' (2017–2022), Jason Scott in the 2017 action film ''Power Rangers'', and Steve ...

as Jeremy *

Patrick Warburton Patrick Warburton (born November 14, 1964) is an American actor. On television, he has played David Puddy on '' Seinfeld'', the title character on ''The Tick'', Jeb Denton on ''Less Than Perfect'', Jeff Bingham on '' Rules of Engagement'' and L ...

as Robert Lerner *

Virginia Madsen Virginia Gayle Madsen (born September 11, 1961) is an American actress and film producer. She made her film debut in ''Class'' (1983), which was filmed in her native Chicago. After she moved to Los Angeles, director David Lynch cast her as Pr ...

as Deandra Lerner

Production

The film was shot in Sydney, Australia, in January and February 2016. It was originally set to be filmed in South Carolina for $500,000 when director Chris Peckover was approached by Australian producer Brett Thornquest, who offered a $3million budget to shoot the film in Australia after hearing Peckover's mother was an Australian native.

Release

In May 2017, North American distribution rights to ''Better Watch Out'' were acquired by

, which released the film theatrically and through

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

on October 6, 2017. In Australia, it was released in select theaters on November 23, 2017, by Rialto Distribution.

Home media

The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

by Well Go USA on December 5, 2017.

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Better Watch Out'' has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Carried by its charismatic young cast, ''Better Watch Out'' is an adorably sinister holiday horror film." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Luke Buckmaster of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the film a rating of 4 stars out of 5 and praised the performances of the actors, saying that, "deranged mind games and faultless performances in Christmas horror". Bill Goodykoontz of '' AZ Central'' praised the performances of the actors: "The performances are uniformly good" and concluded his review by saying that, "''Better Watch Out'' is for fans of twisted, unhinged horror" and gave the film a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5. Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com was not impressed with the film and said that, "''Better Watch Out'' is an infuriating sit because it requires you to invest in the programmatic bullying of a certain type of character, then cheer on that same stock type as he or she defies expectations and refuses to be pummeled into oblivion. ..When the film ends, we've been traded one set of unchallenging cliches for another" and gave the film a rating of 1 star out of 4.

Accolades

References

External links

* * {{AllMovie title 2016 films 2016 comedy horror films 2016 horror thriller films 2016 psychological thriller films 2010s American films 2010s Australian films 2010s Christmas comedy films 2010s Christmas horror films 2010s comedy thriller films 2010s English-language films 2010s psychological horror films 2010s teen horror films American Christmas comedy films American Christmas horror films American comedy horror films American comedy thriller films American horror thriller films American psychological horror films American psychological thriller films American teen horror films Australian Christmas comedy films Australian comedy horror films Australian comedy thriller films Australian horror thriller films Australian teen comedy films Films shot in Sydney Home invasions in film